All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven Review

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

“It’s not your fault. And sorry wastes time. You have to live your life like you’ll never be sorry. It’s easier just to do the right thing from the start so there’s nothing to apologise for.” 

All The Bright Places is the story of two teenagers and their unexpected friendship following a suicide attempt.  Violet used to think she had a perfect life until a car crash left her without a sister and Finch is the screwed up kid who hides the truth from everyone including himself.

The first part of the story is Finch showing Violet how to move on from her sister’s death and not just to live but to wander.

The characters of the novel were likable, they weren’t perfect but it’s those flaws that they had that made them so interesting. But following so many trends these characters were just so standard, the author’s method of putting across her story with no true emotion really showed. The characters just seemed fake to the extent that I couldn’t connect with the story and the plot was the typical meeting and falling love story with the stereotypical nice girl and bad boy characters.  

I think the story focused too much on Finch – his povs were on him/his feelings and Violet’s povs were on him too. It revolved around Finch and his issues too much that it made the story boring. I get why the focus on Finch and his mental illness because it’s a major plot/theme on the book but there’s a limit to how much you want to read about someone in a book until it feels like reading a diary.

I think the author portrayed Finch’s character really well in terms of his bipolar disorder.  The different symptoms that Finch went through like the ‘sleep’ were portrayed really well and also the way mental illnesses are treated by other was shown. The way Finch was bullied by students for mentally thinking differently, the way his family let him close in on himself and didn’t give him the help he needed because mental illness isn’t seen as an illness,  it’s pushed as something that everybody feels – like becoming a teenager and confusing hormones. Symptoms of mental diseases are so commonly confused with the transition of becoming a teenager and I think the book dealt with that idea well.

The ending started off bad but it got better when the wandering started and I think the last couple of pages are the best part which shows exactly what the book is about. Also it’s pretty much predictable.

★★☆☆☆